Public School Choice (PSC) – Overview by MyAmericanChild

Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) every school receives a rating each year based primarily on the percentage of its students that achieved proficiency in reading and mathematics. Schools that reach the target percentage are said to have met or made AYP – Adequate Yearly Progress. NCLB has set the ambitious goal that all students at all schools will be learning to read and write at their grade level at the end of the 2013-2014 school year. At that time 100% of the students must achieve basic proficiency in order for the school to make AYP. In the years before then, the states may set lower (but ever rising) thresholds for meeting AYP. For the 2005-2006 school year, most states set the bar for their schools to meet AYP at between 40% and 60% of the students learning to read and write at their grade level. The families of all students who attend a Title I school that has not made AYP for two consecutive years must be offered the opportunity to enroll their child in a better public school. NCLB describes schools that have not met AYP for two consecutive years as Schools in Need of Improvement. NCLB calls this parental option Public School Choice (PSC). It applies to all the students, regardless of family income, who are enrolled at a Title I school that receives the status of School in Need of Improvement. A Title I school is essentially one where at least 35% of the children in the attendance area are from economically disadvantaged families – and the school receives federal funds to assist them in learning. Almost 60% of the public schools in the U.S. are Title I schools. For the 2005-2006 school year it is reported that 22,878 schools did not make AYP. Of those, almost half – 10,793 – were Title I schools that did not make AYP for the second or more consecutive year, thus making their students eligible to a attend a different public school (PSC). MyAmericanChild estimates that over 6 million children were eligible for PSC in the 2005-2006 school year. We do not have figures for those who actually transferred to different schools, but we expect it to again be less than 1%. We know that some families would not want to move their children. But we do not believe that 99 families out of 100 would not want to do so. We believe that many families were left in the dark or discouraged from transferring their children to better schools. There are many important details regarding PSC which are explained in the information links that we have selected with parents in mind. It is essential to read them to fully understand PSC.